Jaipur, April 20 (IANS) Born deaf and dumb, this 13-year-old boy stranded in Rajasthan for two years has little hope of reunion with his family. A police officer said Saturday that the boy, found in Sep 2011, has been living in different shelter homes.
The boy, about four-and-a-half feet tall, was found crying at a public place in the state's Pali town two years ago. Efforts to trace his family have not succeeded, as the boy himself cannot quite help with details of his parents or family, a police officer told IANS.
Policemen took the boy under their care for a few months and tried to locate his family, but when their efforts remained unsuccessful, the boy was handed over to a government-run shelter home.
The child has changed three shelters homes since he was first found, the police officer said.
The boy is at present at the Mahaveer Avasiya Badir Vidyalaya, a residential school for children with speech and hearing disorders at Jalore town, some 400 kilometers from state capital Jaipur.
He is called Raju, as no one knows his real name.
"Police found Raju in Pali's industrial area. He must have been around 11 years old at that time. We believe that if he was able to speak and hear, he might have offered clues to his family," Dhannaram Purohit, of Zila Viklang Sansthan, an NGO, told IANS.
"He can communicate only a little bit, in sign language. He is unable to write his address or his parents' name. From what he has communicated, we think he comes from Gujarat," Purohit said.
"It is very hard to understand his feelings. We believe he remembers his family, and is probably adjusting to the fact that he might never see them again. He is sometimes quite sad," Purohit said.